Turkington Tops Wet First Practice At Oulton

Colin Turkington set the early pace at a damp Oulton Park circuit during first practice for the fourth British Touring Car Championship round on Saturday morning.

The first of two 40-minute practice sessions was held in less-than-admirable weather conditions, a morning shower soaking the track although that began to improve as the session progressed.

Thruxton race three winner Turkington moved to the top of the times towards the end of the opening 10 minutes of the session, steadily lowering his times to an eventual 1m53.113s effort that proved the fastest from the morning.

It was soon an eBay Motors one-two as Rob Collard jumped up to second place, ending the session 0.915s adrift of Turkington.

A pair of MGs were next up behind the BMW duo, Jason Plato moving steadily up to third place in the second half of the session. Marc Hynes impressed meanwhile in fourth, enjoying the slippery morning conditions.

Rob Austin completed the top five in his Exocet Racing Audi, while his team-mate Hunter Abbott caused a stoppage during the session in the second A4.

Gordon Shedden was top Honda in sixth spot for the works Yuasa Racing squad, ahead of championship leader Andrew Jordan in the Pirtek Racing Civic.

Sam Tordoff, Alain Menu and Nick Foster rounded out the top 10, nine-time Oulton Park winner Menu having lead the opening minutes of the session.

Matt Neal ended in 13th place, Fabrizio Giovanardi two places further back in 15th for Motorbase Performance.

Second practice gets underway at 12:45, and you can follow all the BTCC and support race action this weekend with thecheckeredflag.co.uk.